OP2 Sequence

OP2: 「咆筺のメシア」 (Houkyou no Messiah) by HARUKI

「どこかひとつでも好きになってくれるまで」 (Doko ka Hitotsu demo Suki ni Natte Kurerumade)
“Until You Like At Least One Thing”

An entire episode devoted to our beloved Junna and what a heart-tugging episode it was. As much as I love Aki and her inspiration speeches, I feel like the title of this episode should’ve been called, “Hello, my name is Yoshiro!”, or something to that degree. It would’ve tied in nicely to the theme of robots being friends. Before I dive into my impressions of the episode, I’d like to point out that there is a new ED and OP this week! The ED is exactly my type of ballad and I love the panning artwork pieces as well. Not too much is given away in the OP and ED though, besides the giant Gun-Pro2 finally coming to life.

It’s been a good 2 weeks since Robotics;Notes went on hiatus but the first episode in the new year has not disappointed me. I wasn’t expecting an episode focused on Junna, and up until today, I always thought of her as a really bland character. She’s soft-spoken, and has a lack of involvement within the Robotics Club… but I should know by now that no one is in the Robotics Club for no reason and it seems like they’re all interconnected or involved in some way. In this episode, Doc (Junna’s grandfather) gets sick and sent to the hospital. It’s mentioned in earlier episodes that Junna and Doc don’t get along now despite that fact that they used to. The flashbacks also help to give a quick glimpse into their history and why they stopped talking. If that isn’t enough – I recall it was Mizuka who told Kai that they were related… how does she even know so much?!

Anyway, at first I thought that perhaps Junna was hit or abused as a child, but I never thought of Doc as a bad person. This episode proved that Doc has been feeling guilty all this time for treating robots so specially, only to traumatize his granddaughter simultaneously. I can’t imagine how he must feel to give up on his passion because it reminded him too much of Junna. At the same time, I don’t think Junna realized all the lengths that her grandfather went through after Yoshiro fell on her. There’s no one to blame in these situations, only misunderstandings and bad communications. I felt really touched when Junna finally reached out to Doc and offered him a chance to relieve his guilt. He’s not to blame himself and Junna realizes that he’s been trying hard to reconcile with his past by avoiding her in general. Avoidance is not the best way to handle these types of situations so it’s a relief to see Junna be the bigger person to step out of her comfort zone. It brought tears to my eyes when Junna and Doc finally hugged – way to pull at my heartstrings some more!

Definitely a great way to kick-start the series again and if all our characters had such dramatic but touching stories, I’d be satisfied with Robotics;Notes. Is it a trend now that all our club members have family issues? I’d like to see how Kona’s mother shows up (ifshe shows up) and if Subaru will ever smack some sense into his father. This leaves Aki to her giant robot and Kai’s hunt for more Kimijima Kou reports. The beginning of the episode (and midway) showed the Kai was so close to accomplishing the tasks of report #4. Perhaps it’ll finally be revealed next week – featuring Gojiro!

Full-length images: 09, 12, 16, 26, 29, 30, 32, ED2.

 

ED2 Sequence

ED2: 「トポロジー」 (Topology) by いとうかなこ (Itou Kanako)

26 Comments

  1. Strong episode to return to after a two week hiatus and what better way to kick things off than a look into our not so robot-friendly martial artist. I was particularly happy at the scene where Kai kept Aki from pursuing Jun and letting her find the strength to deal with her own emotional struggles. Not that I don’t love Aki and her ability to inspire/encourage a person (she’s a wonderful protagonist) but I’m glad that Jun could overcome her trauma and that the relationship between her and Doc could be remedied in the way that it was.

    Yasuri
  2. Alright, a breather episode!

    Wait, most of them have been breathers. Actually, despite the fact that a lot of major things have happened and been revealed, the tone doesn’t seem to change much from the easy going atmosphere it usually has. It always feels like something is building up or going to change the status quo, like the reports or those huge solar flares and such, but it’s just taking a gosh dang long time to do so.

    BUT I STILL REALLY LIKE THIS SHOW. FUNIMATION, TAKE MY PRE-ORDER NOW.

    Da5id
  3. this episode was a little weird, the premise is just too much for me to believe it. I’ll explain, I can believe that a child is traumatized if an accident like Jun’s happens to him/her, it may be possible, but I can not believe that an experienced engineer who has, for starters, the naive/immature vision of “robots are your friends” (it’s ok for him to set this as a goal and start working on making some kind of artificial intelligence for that to actually happen, but making supermarket robots that can only move when ordered and speak preprogrammed phrases is something very lame)
    and thinking that because one of this thoughtless boulders fell over a child(even his granddaughter), which frankly is the same that if a box fell over because there’s no intelligence at all in any of them, can cause that mayor change in his ideology. I can not actually believe this. do you?

    euler271
    1. I don’t think it’s just the fact that an artificial life form fell over Junna that killed his spirit… yes, a “box” falling over your child isn’t that big of a deal (well it could be if it injuries your kid but not the point >_<)... I think the bigger deal was that Doc went around preaching this ideal of robots being friends when his own granddaughter didn't find a friend in Yoshiro. The robot was scary, and it traumatized her and for that - Doc feels bad. Does that make sense? It's not just the act of a robot falling over, it's the fact that he wanted so badly to make her feel like robots are friends and it turns out that she hates them.

  4. Those smiling robots faces somehow goes from cute–>scarry–>cute/repeat depending on the scene ==;

    And wow, this is another one of those rare times tht I feel touched and made me feels teary… Nice job, R;N.

    d-LaN
  5. Finally, an Itou Kanako song! It felt so weird watching a science adventure series without her vocals, but now things are the way they should be. I miss Phantasm, too, but at least we still got an S;G reference.

    SingerOfW
  6. Meh…to much feels for me in this ep, I wanna get back to all that sun-exploadin’-ominous-anime-ending stuff they feed us before the hiatus ( WHICH FELT LIKE FOREVER!)

    I really love the new op and ed though. Itou Kanako = <3

    Jolly
    1. I have to admit, that I could have done without the Junna centric episode, but this is based on a game, after all, and they somehow want to incorporate her route, I guess? Even if she has been a fairly useless character, so far. Hopefully, the next episode returns to the meat of the story.

      boingman
      1. Actually the game follows a linear path that branches out. So the linear path branches out to junna’s route where this episode ends and the actual story takes a back seat. There is a reason the 4th report coincides with junna’s problem. The same thing goes for steins gate. So the episodes where okabe has to get the d-mails of Ruka and feyris changed wasn’t there because white fox added in their routes. It was part of the whole story to begin with.

        MCAL
  7. In real world , to operate gantry/ overhead crane require proper training, so this highschool kids are lucky if they can use it without dropping things or smashed by falling objects..done ranting, now my body and mind are ready for the continuation of my favourite high tech tablet pc’s story.

    vrr4141
  8. Nice breather episode before more Kimijima Report madness starts, and mysterious evil organization starts doing THINGS to those kids… like in, you know, Stein’s;Gate. (shudder)
    Junna was earlier kinda showed off to the side, she was there, but wasn’t radiating any story, if you know what I mean. She seemed bland next to genki/enthusiastic Akiho and crazy netizen/otaku Frau. How wrong I was!

    ewok40k

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